Markedness, input frequency, and the acquisition of inflection: Evidence from Basque/Spanish bilingual children

Austin, Jennifer

doi:10.1177/1367006912438991

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Secondly, both groups showed a phonological effect whereby ergative -k is more likely to be produced in prevocalic contexts. This finding is consistent with the Stop Deletion Rule in Basque (Hualde, 1991) and reported in production studies (Austin, 2013;Ezeizabarrena & Larrañaga, 1996;Rodríguez-Ordóñez, 2015. Third, whereas personal pronouns showed a general trend in favoring ergative case marking, first-and third-person subjects also showed a disfavoring effect.…”

Section: Linguistic Stability Despite Differences In Constraintssupporting

confidence: 90%

“…(1) The variation in Basque ergativity has been extensively examined in syntactic theory (Preminger, 2012;Rezac et al, 2014), historical linguistics (Aldai, 2009), child language acquisition (Austin, 2007(Austin, , 2013Ezeizabarrena & Larrañaga, 1996), and psycholinguistics (Díaz et al, 2016;Zawiszewski et al, 2011). In particular, the syntactic status of unergative verbs (Bobaljik, 1993;Hale & Keyser, 1993) shows a clear dialectal divide (see Berro & Etxepare, 2017;Pineda & Berro, 2020 for recent discussions).…”

Section: Verb Typementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This study addresses recent calls for more diverse sources of data in variationist work (e.g., Stanford, 2016). An important contribution of this study is the understanding of Basque ergative variation as orderly heterogeneity—a variable linguistic feature that, despite having received extensive attention in syntactic theory (Preminger, 2012; Rezac, Albizu, & Etxepare, 2014), language acquisition (Austin, 2007, 2013; Ezeizabarrena, 2013; Rodríguez-Ordóñez, 2015), and language processing (Díaz, Erdocia, de Menezes, Mueller, Sebastián-Gallés, & Laka, 2016; Zawiszewski & Laka, 2020; Zawiszewski, Gutiérrez, Fernández, & Laka, 2011), remains understudied from a quantitative sociolinguistic perspective. In this study, we draw from various traditions (formal linguistics, typology, and variationist approaches to subject production) to account for the structured variation of the -k ergative marker in Basque, which we show is constrained by the following linguistic factors: verb type, animacy, person and number of the subject, and phonological context.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Variation in the production of Basque ergativity: Change or stable variation?

Gondra,

Rodríguez-Ordóñez,

Franco-Landa

2024

Lang Var Change

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This study examines the extent to which the Basque ergative -k marker is undergoing change in the Basque Autonomous Community. The inclusion of Standard Basque in the education system since 1982 has brought a significant generational change in the mode of language acquisition: older speakers had no formal education in Basque, whereas younger speakers were educated in the Basque immersion program. Contrary to popular belief, results provide no evidence of ergative loss in apparent time; rather, they are consistent with linguistic stabilization. We claim that the differences in social constraints of gender and language use among the younger group reflect social changes, in which mode of language acquisition is responsible for the social stabilization and further stratification of ergativity. We conclude by arguing that minoritized contexts undergoing language revitalization provide important implications for sociolinguistic change, whereby social changes are embraced in assessing linguistic change.

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Section: Linguistic Stability Despite Differences In Constraintssupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Verb Typementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Variation in the production of Basque ergativity: Change or stable variation?

Gondra,

Rodríguez-Ordóñez,

Franco-Landa

2024

Lang Var Change

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“…In the nominal inflection, however, ergativity is developmental: it first emerges around the age of 2;01 and continues to be very variable until children are around 3;00, consistent with other ergative languages (Bavin & Stoll, 2013; Pye et al, 2013). This alternation between ergative –k and zero-marking has been termed Optional Ergative Case Stage with evidence pointing that such a stage is more drawn-out in bilingual children (Austin, 2007, 2013). Two important input-related factors have been claimed to contribute in this optional stage.…”

Section: Basque Ergativitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of frequency in the acquisition of structured variation: The case of Basque ergativity

Rodríguez‐Ordóñez

2022

International Journal of Bilingualism

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Aims and objectives: This study examines the extent to which new speakers use the Basque ergative case marking ( –k) in the nominal inflection. I specifically ask whether frequency-based factors (language use and lexical frequency) play a role in its use by also considering speakers’ self-claimed Basque identities. Design/methodology/approach: The spontaneous speech of 39 Basque–Spanish bilinguals was collected by means of sociolinguistic interviews. Participants were self-stratified according to categories of Basque speakerhood ( euskaldunberri “new speaker”; euskaldun “Basque speaker”; euskaldunzahar “native speaker”). We also considered their proficiency, language use, and sex. Data and analysis: In total, 2,755 tokens were extracted for the presence/absence of ergative –k and coded for the following four linguistic factors: verb type, animacy person and number, phonological context, and type of NP. Lexical frequency was operationalized in terms of overall token frequency of lexical verb. Data were analyzed using mixed-effects models in R. Findings and conclusions: Results indicate that despite higher incidence of ergative omissions among new speakers, they show (1) consistent mastery of core internal constraints (verb type, phonological context) and (2) gradual structuring based on lexical frequency effects. These omissions occur in pragmatically structured conditions (topic shift, emphasis, and introducing self in narrative) alongside extensions of –k to unaccusative contexts (focus and topicalization). No independent effects of language use were found. Originality: This study is the first to examine of Basque ergativity among adult Basque speakers, taking also into account discourse factors, lexical frequency, and speakers’ social identities and proficiencies. Significance and implications: First, the mediating effects of lexical frequency are indicative that that sociolinguistic variation is acquired in a piece-meal fashion and that such patterns emerge from discourse as they are used in context. Second, it is argued that the new speakers’ kind of social practices hold key in explaining the reallocation of linguistic constraints in their variable production.

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“…6 Austin (2013) also observes that bilingual Spanish-Basque children produce 3rd person more frequently than 1st person, as do the adults that surround them. An anonymous reviewer notes that an overwhelming number of experimental items would be considered ungrammatical in monolingual Spanish.…”

Section: Data Availability Statementmentioning

confidence: 88%

Paradigmatic Uniformity: Evidence from Heritage Speakers of Spanish

Camacho¹

2022

Languages

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Subject-verb agreement mismatches have been reported in the L2 and heritage literature, usually involving infinitives, analyzed as default morphological forms for fully specified T-heads. This article explores the mechanisms behind these mismatches, testing two hypotheses: the default form and the surface-similarity hypotheses. It compares non-finite and finite S-V mismatches with subjects with different persons, testing whether similarity with other paradigmatic forms makes them more acceptable, controlling for the role of verb frequency. Participants were asked to rate sentences on a Likert scale that included (a) infinitive forms with first, second and third person subjects, and (b) third person verbal forms with first, second and third person subjects. Two stem-stressed verbs (e.g., tra.j-o ‘brought.3p.past’) and two affix-stressed verbs (e.g., me.ti-o ‘introduced.3p.past’), varying in frequency were tested. Inflectional affixes of stem-stressed verbs are similar to other forms of the paradigm both phonologically and in being unstressed (tra.j-o ‘brought.3p.past’ vs. trai.g-o ‘bring.1 p.pres’), whereas affixes of affix-stressed verbs have dissimilar stress patterns (me.ti-o ´introduced.3p.past’ vs. me.t-o ‘introduce.1p.pres’). Results show significantly higher acceptability for finite vs. non-finite non-matching, and for 1st vs. 2nd person subjects. Stem-stressed verbs showed higher acceptability ratings than affix-stressed ones, suggesting a role for surface-form correspondence, partially confirming previous findings.

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Markedness, input frequency, and the acquisition of inflection: Evidence from Basque/Spanish bilingual children

Cited by 5 publications

References 23 publications

Variation in the production of Basque ergativity: Change or stable variation?

Variation in the production of Basque ergativity: Change or stable variation?

The role of frequency in the acquisition of structured variation: The case of Basque ergativity

Paradigmatic Uniformity: Evidence from Heritage Speakers of Spanish

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